Pharmacy data in epidemiological studies: an easy to obtain and reliable tool
Purpose The agreement between drug use measured in computerized pharmacy records and patient interviews or questionnaires is generally good. However, most investigations on this subject studied selected populations or subsets. We studied the coverage of Dutch pharmacy data for our study cohort, and...
Saved in:
Published in | Pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety Vol. 11; no. 5; pp. 379 - 384 |
---|---|
Main Authors | , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Chichester, UK
John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
01.07.2002
|
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
Cover
Loading…
Summary: | Purpose
The agreement between drug use measured in computerized pharmacy records and patient interviews or questionnaires is generally good. However, most investigations on this subject studied selected populations or subsets. We studied the coverage of Dutch pharmacy data for our study cohort, and the agreement between the different sources.
Methods
We used the data from 8592 subjects of an on‐going population‐based study, focused on the impact of microalbuminuria (PREVEND). Data on drug use was collected in a questionnaire and at community pharmacies. Drug use was measured in the year preceding the questionnaire. Agreement between the sources was measured using kappa‐values, sensitivity and positive predictive value.
Results
Pharmacy data could be collected for 7568 (88%) of the study cohort. Pharmacy data and questionnaires showed good agreement for antihypertensives, lipid lowering drugs, oral antidiabetics and oral contraceptives, but poor agreement for nitrates, hormone replacement therapy and painkillers.
Conclusions
Pharmacy data could be collected for a large proportion of our cohort. For chronically used drugs pharmacy data generally agrees well with questionnaires. However, for drugs used for shorter periods, as needed, or also available over‐the‐counter, the agreement is not so good. Pharmacy data can be a valuable source of drug information in epidemiological studies. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |
---|---|
Bibliography: | ark:/67375/WNG-PNBM2W92-S ArticleID:PDS722 Dutch Kidney Foundation (Nierstichting Nederland) - No. E.013 istex:57B7834250EC2316566418B9509D9520FA930273 Other members of the PREVEND Study Group are mentioned in the Acknowledgements. ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 1053-8569 1099-1557 |
DOI: | 10.1002/pds.722 |